The Dominion of War: Empire
and Conflict in North America 1500-2000By Fred Anderson and Andrew Cayton(Pengun, 2005)

London Review of Books, May 19, 2005

Is the United States an empire? Only in the US could such a question
even be
asked. To the rest of the world, the answer is obvious: the US is perhaps
the
most powerful empire the world has known. Empire means dominion, the desire
and
ability to determine the fate of peoples near and far. And in every index
of
power  hard and soft, military, economic
and cultural  the US far exceeds
all other nations. It accounts for one-third of the worlds gross
domestic
product and military spending. Even before the Iraq war, it had more than
700
military installations overseas. It is not surprising that in such
circumstances, many Americans feel that the country can impose its will
on the
rest of the world, establishing rules of conduct for others while acting
as it
sees fit.
In recent times, it has mainly been critics of the countrys foreign
policy who
have spoken of an American empire. Empire has seemed distasteful, a relic
of a
less enlightened era of international relations. America, George W. Bush
insisted during the 2000 election campaign, had never been an empire
and had
no intention of becoming one. Politicians still shy away from the term.
But
since the attacks of 11 September 2001, the term empire has
been used without
embarrassment by political commentators in the US. The need to shoulder
the
burdens of empire is now a common theme in discussions among the foreign
policy
elite. Conservative writers such as Charles Krauthammer forthrightly defend
American empire as an exercise of raw power, while traditional liberals
like
Michael Ignatieff promote it as a way of protecting human rights against
tyrannical regimes.
Perhaps the leading current populariser of the idea is Niall Ferguson.
Only an
American empire, he insists, can secure order in a dangerous, unruly world.
He
does not deny that the US is and always has been an empire. The only question
for him is whether it possesses the means to continue to act as one. His
recent
book, Colossus, is a how-to manual for Americans ambivalent about the
financial
and psychological costs of empire.
The idea that the US is and should be an empire has a long history, one
linked
to the belief that by example, force or a combination of the two, the
country
should try to remake the world in its own image. Our empire, however,
was to be
different from all others. Jefferson spoke of America as an empire
of liberty.
When the nation stepped onto the world stage as an imperial power in the
Spanish-American War of 1898, President William McKinley insisted that
ours was
a benevolent imperialism, that the conquest of Puerto Rico
and the Philippines
ought not to be compared to the despotic actions of European powers. Woodrow
Wilson insisted that only the US possessed the combination of military
power and
moral righteousness to make the world safe for democracy.
Like Ferguson, Fred Anderson and Andrew Cayton begin with the premise
that the
US has always been an empire. But in contrast to Fergusons brief,
sanitised
account of US history, which leaves the impression that the countrys
territorial expansion on the North American continent took place largely
through
peaceful settlement and the purchase of land, Anderson and Cayton emphasise
the
centrality of military conquest.
They are nothing if not ambitious. Their aim in The Dominion of War is
to
dismantle what they call the traditional grand narrative that
portrays
American history as the emergence and triumph of freedom in one nation,
its
spread across the continent, and its mission to liberate the oppressed
peoples
of the world. Long since abandoned, or at least severely modified, by
professional historians, this vision remains alive and well in the popular
imagination, in our public monuments and in political rhetoric. Ours,
President Bush declared in 2002, is a history of freedom; freedom
for
everyone.
Anderson and Cayton insist that American history is a bit more complicated
than
that. War, they write, has been the major engine of change
that defined
American history and created the American empire. They reject the popular
idea
that Americans go to war only as a last resort, motivated by self-defence
or the
desire to preserve and spread freedom rather than national aggrandisement.
Good
wars, like the Revolution and World War Two, which seem to fit this
model, are
memorialised in Washington, Hollywood films and national bestsellers.
Anderson
and Cayton, by contrast, devote extended attention to wars for which no
public
monuments exist and of which most Americans remain ignorant. These include
the
war against Britain of 1812, motivated in large part by the hope of conquering
Canada and seizing land occupied by Indians east of the Mississippi; the
Mexican-American War of 1846-48, in which the United States forcibly annexed
one-third of the territory of its southern neighbour; and the Philippine
War of
1899-1902, in which American troops fought a brutal struggle against insurgents
who viewed them as occupiers, not liberators.
The Dominion of War also challenges the venerable notion of American
exceptionalism. Rather than a shining city on a hill (as the Puritan settlers
believed) or the last best hope of earth (as Lincoln put it), Anderson
and
Cayton see the US as a nation no different from many others. It seeks
to
maximise its own power and to exercise dominion over as large an area
as
possible. There is nothing distinctively American, either, in the cynical
deployment of moral arguments to justify empire. Sixteenth-century Spaniards
claimed to be freeing Indians from backwardness and superstition.
Late
19th-century Britons insisted that imperialism in Africa was inspired,
in part,
by a desire to suppress slavery. There is nothing new in slogans like
Operation
Iraqi Freedom.
To forge a counter-narrative of American history, Anderson
and Cayton
structure their book around a series of detailed vignettes, focused on
nine
individuals. Their selection includes some familiar names, such as George
Washington and Andrew Jackson, and some surprising ones, including Samuel
de
Champlain, who did more than anyone to create the French empire in 17th-century
North America, and Antonio López de Santa Anna, the Mexican leader
who suffered
defeat both in the Texas War for Independence and the Mexican-American
War.
Given that Anderson and Cayton are well-regarded scholars of colonial
and early
national America, it is perhaps not surprising that the early chapters
are the
most persuasive. They offer striking illustrations of how relations with
Native
Americans powerfully shaped the origins of the American empire, and how
that
empire eventually expelled or destroyed the continents original
inhabitants.
Believing that empire could be based on intercultural co-operation
rather than
brute force, Champlain dealt with Indians on humane and relatively equal
terms,
in contrast to English settlers, whose policies smacked more of apartheid
than
engagement. Yet by introducing European weapons and forging military alliances
with certain Indians, Champlain set in motion events that led to persistent
warfare and the destruction of entire tribes.
No matter how benevolently conceived, empire is inherently violent and
destructive. This lesson comes through in the story of William Penn, who
founded
the colony of Pennsylvania as a haven for persecuted English Quakers (and
land-hungry Europeans generally). Penn promised settlers land at low prices,
and
tried to deal fairly with local Indians. But his policies were
self-contradictory. The success of his colony, not to mention his fortune,
depended on selling as much land as possible. Pennsylvanias population
doubled
every 18 years. Burgeoning white settlement inevitably meant conflict
with the
Indians. By the mid-18th century, relations between Penns successors
and
Indians had become more violent and antagonistic than in any other English
colony.
The same themes of territorial expansion and Indian subjugation inform
the
chapters on George Washington, which illustrate the continuities and differences
between the British Empire and the American one created in 1776. Like
the rest
of the Virginia gentry, Washington engaged actively in land speculation
and did
not recognise any limit on westward expansion. (This is why the Proclamation
of
1763, by which authorities in London sought to curb white settlement west
of the
Appalachians, alarmed Virginians as much as British taxes that tried to
make
them share the financial cost of empire.) When independence came, it produced
an
imperial republic far more dangerous to the Indians than the
British had been,
since its proclaimed devotion to liberty through continuous territorial
expansion required the conquest and ethnic cleansing of the
native population.
Anderson and Cayton point out that the battles of the Revolutionary War
celebrated in history books  Saratoga, Trenton, Yorktown 
were accompanied by
a forgotten total war on the frontier that led to the devastation
of entire
Indian villages. Washington himself ordered that Indian communities in
upstate
New York be not merely overrun but destroyed.
American independence produced a decentralised, agrarian empire, in which
liberty rested on opening up more and more land in the West while reducing
the
presence of the national government in Americans lives. This was
Jeffersons
empire of liberty. Anderson and Cayton ignore a rival conception
of empire,
associated with Alexander Hamilton, that also arose in the aftermath of
independence. Hamilton believed that national greatness required the
construction of a robust central state modelled on Great Britain, with
a
standing army, a powerful navy and a government tied closely to the economic
self-interest of the wealthiest Americans. Hamiltons vision was
rejected at the
time, but it has more in common with todays American empire than
Jeffersons
agrarian republic.
Nearly half of The Dominion of War covers the colonial and revolutionary
eras.
The two centuries from 1800 to the present are treated in a far more cursory
manner. Andrew Jackson exemplifies the rise of a populist, racist imperialism
in
which liberty became an entitlement of white men. Ulysses S. Grant consolidates
the power of the nation-state through his victory in the Civil War, and
as
president tries to reconcile American power with American values
by adopting a
peace policy towards the remaining Indians, but to no lasting
effect. The
career of Douglas MacArthur illuminates the expansion of American global
power
in the first half of the 20th century.
The two hundred pages allotted to the 19th and 20th centuries are too
few to do
justice to the themes of warfare and empire. Anderson and Caytons
account of
the Spanish-American War of 1898 and its aftermath, however, bears an
uncanny
resemblance to todays headlines. American leaders hailed the acquisition
of the
Philippines from Spain as part of the narrative of global freedom. But
when
residents of the islands rose up against the occupying forces, the American
commander, Douglas MacArthurs father, presided over a war that involved
the
torture of prisoners and horrendous civilian casualties.
After the subjugation of the Philippines, the American empire gave up
territorial conquest. Economic penetration coupled with sporadic military
intervention replaced long-term direct rule as the favoured mechanism
for
exerting American power. Nonetheless, the American empire was hardly benign
or
devoted to liberty. Woodrow Wilson spoke of bringing the virtues of democracy
and self-determination to the world, but during his presidency, US armies
occupied areas of Mexico, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Panama, Nicaragua
and
Cuba. The aim was to protect American political hegemony and commercial
interests, but the rhetoric was that of freedom. These aims, and this
rhetoric,
persist today on a global scale.
In an age of overspecialisation among historians, it is refreshing to
encounter
a work that sweeps over five centuries of American history, especially
one that
is readable, well researched and informed by a coherent theme and strong
point
of view. But in some ways, The Dominion of War is disappointing. For one
thing,
its structure is at odds with its argument. Biography is not the best
vehicle
for examining the large issues with which the book grapples. The choice
of
subjects is limited and sometimes difficult to understand: why only MacArthur
and, in a brief epilogue, Colin Powell from the 20th century, and why
Santa Anna
at all? The biographical details are revealing but often seem unrelated
to the
books broad themes. How crucial to the history of empire are Washingtons
preoccupation with order, Jacksons sense of honour, Santa Annas
womanising or
MacArthurs relentless ambition? The biographies stress individual
decision-making and the unintended consequences of events. British victory
in
the Seven Years War produced the American Revolution; territorial acquisition
from Mexico sparked the sectional controversy that led to the Civil War.
But the
authors emphasis on highly contingent events leaves
the reader wondering
whether empire is intrinsic to the American experience or the accidental
outcome
of individual idiosyncrasies.
What makes a book good is what you leave out, John Garraty
once remarked.
Obviously, selection is crucial in a work that tries to cover five centuries.
But in this case, too much has been left out of the story, especially
once the
book reaches the 20th century, when the US acted most forcefully as an
empire on
the world stage. War, moreover, was not the only catalyst of overseas
empire.
The book ignores empires internal roots  the quest for markets
for Americas
ever-expanding industrial production, the need for raw materials, the
desire for
places to invest capital. There is almost nothing about culture and ideology
as
sources of imperial power. In general, the US is treated as an undifferentiated
imperial unit, expanding first on the North American continent and then
internationally, with little attention to internal divisions, including
divisions over the wisdom and morality of empire itself.
Perhaps the most glaring omission is any consideration of the centrality
of
slavery to the first 250 years of the American experience. The authors
seem to
view slavery as little more than an obstacle to the national unity necessary
for
the full realisation of the countrys imperial ambitions. But colonial
America
was part of a slave-based empire. After independence, slavery spurred
expansionism and gave American nationality a distinct racial cast.
African-Americans are almost entirely absent from this story  at
least until
the final pages, when Colin Powell makes a brief appearance to illustrate
how
the Vietnam War affected thinking about the countrys role in the
world.
Still, Anderson and Cayton deserve praise for their call for Americans
to think
about their history in terms of power as well as freedom. Current imperial
policies, they suggest, do not result from the machinations of the president
and
a small group of malevolent advisers, but have deep roots in the American
experience. Greater knowledge of the idea and practice of empire might
help
Americans understand why other nations resent our penchant for pursuing
our own
interests as a world power while proclaiming that we embody universal
values.
The Dominion of War offers a valuable reminder that the benevolence of
benevolent imperialism lies in the eye of the beholder. Indians and Mexicans
did
not choose to surrender their land to the onward march of the empire of
liberty.
Filipinos and Puerto Ricans did not necessarily share the judgment that
they
were better off under American rule than as independent nations. As we
watch
from our living-rooms the progress of Operation Iraqi Freedom, it is worth
remembering Anderson and Caytons observation that most American
wars have been
fought less to preserve liberty than to extend the power of the
United States
in the name of liberty.
The Dominion of War might be read alongside J.M. Coetzees novel
Waiting for the
Barbarians. Coetzees protagonist, a well-intentioned petty bureaucrat
living on
the imperial frontier, develops a passionate hatred for a brutal official
sent
from the centre to extract information about a local insurgency. He comes
to
understand that the torturer and the humanitarian are both intrinsic to
the
practice of empire. I was not, as I liked to think, the indulgent
pleasure-loving opposite of the cold, rigid colonel. I was the lie that
Empire
tells itself when times are easy, he the truth that Empire tells when
the harsh
winds blow. Two sides of imperial rule, no more, no less. Empire
is a way not
of protecting democracy and human rights, but of destroying them.
Republic or empire? This was the central question of the presidential
contest
of 1900 between William McKinley, the proponent of benevolent imperialism,
and
William Jennings Bryan, who viewed empire as incompatible with democracy,
at
home as well as abroad. At least McKinley and Bryan were candid about
what was
at stake. In the 2004 campaign, empire was the idea that dared not speak
its
name. Bush repudiated the word while pursuing the policy. Kerry offered,
in
effect, empire with a human face. By a small majority, the American people
chose
the unalloyed version. The question now is whether the rest of the world
will
consent to live as its subjects.